life on the ISS

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote:

wrote:

What does the space station smell like from inside?

Fortunately, in space the sense of smell is somewhat dulled by body
fluids redistributing themselves evenly throughout the body (instead of
being pooled by gravity), which clogs the sinuses a bit. It affects
taste for the same reason; astronauts tend to prefer spicier foods in
space than they would eat on the ground. The number one food item among
NASA astronauts is shrimp cocktail loaded with horseradish.

Nevertheless, some smell does come through. The interior smell of ISS
has been compared to a locker room, though different crewmembers report
different impressions.

Sounds like what the insides of submarines smell like. (This is the
reason they were nicknamed 'pig boats'.)

Even without the sense of smell being dulled, I'd be surprised if the
crew could smell it after more than a day or two - as the body/mind
tends to edit persistent and non threatening smells out of their
perception. (Ever walked into a house that is a pigpen and wonder how
the inhabitants thereof can live the with smell? This is how, they
literally cannot smell it.) We had that effect when we reported to
the boat to swap crews - for the first day or two you were almost
overwhelmed by the smell, then in 'vanished'.

One interesting factoid - every boat had its own smell. When you had
to go aboard a different boat, you'd almost instantly note the smell.
Thus, as the crews (and the physical enviroment due to added modules)
on ISS change I am not surprised that the smell changes slightly.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

"Brian Gaff" wrote:

It is hard to make the kind of equipment quiet and for it to stay that way.


It's non trivial, but eminently doable. The problem however is
twofold: it costs two things in short supply on ISS - space and
weight, and it has to be designed into the equipment from Day One.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Thank you for the answers, they are exactly like what I hoped for,
really, thank you so much!

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...
wrote:

Fortunately, in space the sense of smell is somewhat dulled by body fluids
redistributing themselves evenly throughout the body (instead of being
pooled by gravity), which clogs the sinuses a bit. It affects taste for
the same reason; astronauts tend to prefer spicier foods in space than
they would eat on the ground. The number one food item among NASA
astronauts is shrimp cocktail loaded with horseradish.

You know, I keep thinking if they like it spicier than on the ground, they'd
have to ship up a LOT of spice if I ever flew :-)



Nevertheless, some smell does come through. The interior smell of ISS has
been compared to a locker room, though different crewmembers report
different impressions.

--
Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting Remote and Onsite available!
Email: sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com/sqlserver.html

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...

The Russian segment is considerably noisier than the US segment, as it was
adapted from Mir designs without regard for US noise standards. Early
crews installed baffles on some equipment to muffle the sound but the dB
levels still exceed standards.

Any idea of the average db levels in the various parts of the US segment?


--
Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting Remote and Onsite available!
Email: sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com/sqlserver.html

nmp wrote:

Greg D. Moore \(Strider\) wrote:

You know, I keep thinking if they like it spicier than on the ground,
they'd have to ship up a LOT of spice if I ever flew :-)

Hmmm. How much garlic and thyme do you think an ATV could hold?

I wonder if anyone has ever tried to really cook in space? What would be
necessary to make this possible? Of course, big honking frying pans are
useless in Zero G, but has anyone ever tried something more creative than
heating up precooked stuff? They surely must have a little microwave oven
up there. What else?

A microwave oven counts as cooking only in the most broad and generous
of definitions.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

(Derek Lyons) writes:

"Brian Gaff" wrote:

It is hard to make the kind of equipment quiet and for it to stay that way.

It's non trivial, but eminently doable. The problem however is
twofold: it costs two things in short supply on ISS - space and
weight, and it has to be designed into the equipment from Day One.

Long ago I've read an article about the (german) company designing and
manufacturing some of the air ducts for the ISS and they seemed to be
well aware of the problem -- noise reduction was high on the priority
list. But there're so many things running all the time there and when
you can not rely on warm air rising by itself you have to move lots of
air around all the time...


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

nmp writes:
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to really cook in space? What would be
necessary to make this possible? Of course, big honking frying pans are
useless in Zero G, but has anyone ever tried something more creative than
heating up precooked stuff? They surely must have a little microwave oven
up there. What else?

I think a kind of a chinese wok made of a heated, rotating metal sphere
could be used -- heat and spin it up, inject some oil, put some cut-down
vegetables and meat in (prepared from dried or frozen stocks), shake
well for a few minutes and you're done. Add a zero-g rice-cooker (should
be simple, you only need a way to generate steam from water) and you can
do quite a bit of serious meal preparing. Stir-frying seems to be a
natural fit for weightlessness, especially since you'll be able to
prepare food in bite-sized pieces with it.

Another thing would be some device for baking bread. Having fresh bread
every day could be an enormous advantage for longer missions because you
can easily add spices, nuts, olives and a myriad of other things to the
dough to add some variation and to allow some creativity. Small
bread-baking machines are quite common nowadays and I don't see any
reason those shouldn't work in zero-g. A kind of pancake made with two
heated plates pressed together should be possible, too.

I'm quite sure you'd need something like that for longer missions.
Having people eat the same two dozens of precooked meals for two years
or more seems to be a sure receipt for frustation... Even on Mir or ISS
the meals seem to become a major point after some months and an orange
or an apple brought by visiting crews seem to become very valued items.


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Jochem Huhmann wrote:

Long ago I've read an article about the (german) company designing and
manufacturing some of the air ducts for the ISS and they seemed to be
well aware of the problem -- noise reduction was high on the priority
list. But there're so many things running all the time there and when
you can not rely on warm air rising by itself you have to move lots of
air around all the time...

The US modules use as much water cooled devices as possible. This
greatly reduces the noise levels.

However, I think that Destiny still needs to have huge fans. It now
pulls air in via ducts from Unity/Quest/Zarya on one side and from
Harmony/Columbus/Kibo on the other side. So those ducts would be moving
large volumes or air (and to do that, it would be travelling at a fair
speed (hence noisier in the ducts, and at the blower site.

As well, all that air that it pulls in needs to be treated/heated/cooled
and then released into Destiny and flows back to the other modules
through the opened CBM hatches.


The USA learned from Mir about noise levels and made a good effort to
control noice on its new modules. I think the Russians made *an* effort
for Zvezda, but nothing radically different.

A microwave oven counts as cooking only in the most broad and generous
of definitions.

One huge problem is immobilising food in the oven.

Someone mentioned baking bread. You'd probably have the dough in a rough
"baguette" shape that is sqewered on some metal stick that would hold
it in place in the oven. It would cook from all around (eg: no baking
pan to hold it.

But cooking a roast beef would require the roast beef be placed in some
sort of heat resistant bag to contain all the juices that would flow
out, and this would have issues of how to release the extra pressure
when water boils inside the bag, and whether the roast would be "cooked"
or boiled in steam.


However, improving food preparation in space would be far more
interesting "research" than watching crystals grow in a test tube. There
are definite challenges to it.


Cooking vegetables in a bag in a microwave would be quite easy. (but
again, you have the problem of ensuring only steam escapes from bag, no
liquids/butter/olive oil).

Of course, they would probably need to convert their "Sub Zero" freezer
into a conventional refrigirator...